Wednesday, July 31, 2013

I'd describe the color of China Glaze Electric Beat as a creamy cornflower blue shade of azure. It is a lovely serene color that reminds me a bit of the sky on a clear cloudless October day, the kind when you can see the quarter moon in the daytime sky and the depth of the atmosphere feels weightless over your head.

Electric Beat is a beautifully formulated creme polish. It is well-pigmented and nearly a one coater. The consistency is liquid enough to glide effortlessly onto the nail, with enough viscosity to stay where you put it. This is China Glaze at it's best, which is pretty darn hard to beat. For this manicure I applied two easy coats of Electric Beat over my basecoat duo of Seche Rebuild and Essie First Base and added a topcoat of Seche Vite.

My apologies for the rather gruesome overall scruffiness of my fingers and cuticles in the photos for this post. A tête-à-tête (that's FRENCH, btw) with my bottle of Blue Cross cuticle remover is close on the horizon.

China Glaze Electric Beat, bottle shot

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Electric Beat

As a card-carrying blue polish lover, you know I adore Electric Beat. Wearing it makes me feel like I should be up in one of those incredible hot air balloons that you get to see so often above your neighborhood there in Charlottesville.

I used this manicure as a base layer for a beautiful azure blue based polish by indie polish maker KBShimmer called Watercolor. You may remember KBShimmer from my Toucan Touch This and Lilac Dreams posts. Then again, you may not. *grin* Whatever!

Watercolor is a glitter crelly polish, a creme/jelly hybrid full of a mixture of purple, blue, pink and silver glitters of different sizes and finishes. It's blue base is a bit brighter and less milky than the color of Electric Beat. It also has a jelly's glowing translucence.

Christy Rose, the founder and creative force behind KBShimmer, describes the variety of glitters in Watercolor: "I started with purple glitters in two sizes, a bright blue and a satin
purple. I then loaded it with royal blue large hex, pink holographic
hex and magenta hex glitters. It is finished with micro pink and
larger sliver holographic glitters for some added sparkle." As you would guess from the name, her inspiration for this polish was a watercolor painting "where the pinks, purples and blues just flowed into one another."

Watercolor is superbly formulated. The consistency is light and fluid and each dip of the brush is loaded with glitters, which disperse beautifully across the nail. I had a similarly wonderful experience applying Toucan Touch This. Christy's formulary skills with these glitter packed polishes are just magical, especially when you consider how many differently sized glitters she uses in her polishes. There is no stickiness or goopiness, no stacking, no dragging, no clumps. It is pigmented enough to build to opacity on it's own, but my
application skills serve me best when I layer. Plus I just really like
layering, it gives me a selfish, satisfying little charge to think that I had a hand in
how a combo turns out on the nail.

On my nubbins I used my patented (NOT!) plosh and spread technique to apply two coats of Watercolor over the Electric Beat manicure. One was sufficient for number and variety of glitters, but I wanted two to take advantage of Watercolor's beautiful translucence and Christy's vision for this polish. Watercolor dries naturally to a semi-matte satiny finish and I added two coats of Seche Vite over it to smooth the surface and get that gorgeous glitter under glass look.

China Glaze Electric Beat and KBShimmer Watercolor

KBShimmer Watercolor, macro shot in the bottle

China Glaze Electric Beat on the nail, KBShimmer Watercolor in the bottle

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

KBShimmer Watercolor over China Glaze Electric Beat

Sweet, no? Though outwardly Watercolor is somewhat complex, it has a singular message and that message is: have fun! Whatever you're doing, make it fun! This polish has a big heart, it's brimming with a cheerful generosity of spirit that you just have to love. The color mix is cohesive and beautiful to the eye, and the bright pops of sparkle give it a nice energetic hum. This is one of those polishes that will give your spirits a little lift when you're feeling like you've been rode hard and put up wet. It's one of those that reminds you that God is in the details.A little bit of whatever you're in need of can go a long way when you're needing it, don't you think? I do!love,Aunt Liz

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Redwood Creme by Sation is a medium dark adobe pink with berry overtones and just the right amount of silvery shimmer. It is a slightly milky, translucent color with a retro feminine vibe. The silver shimmer softens the pink a bit in a gaussian blur sort of way and gives it a certain visually pleasing dusty glow and delicious extra sparkle in direct sunlight.It is not particularly pleasing to apply, unfortunately. The consistency is very liquid with flooding tendencies and dry time seemed longer than average. The photos show three coats of Redwood Creme over my basecoat duo plus a nice topcoat of Seche Vite.

Sation Redwood Creme, bottle shot

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme -- see that silvery shimmer?

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Sation Redwood Creme

Pretty, no? Makes my finger nails look like juicy little fruits! Redwood creme has a curious aloof feel on the nail that puts me in mind of the elegantly dressed and made up saleswomen you sometimes see behind high end cosmetic counters in department stores. After my fun with pink and blue the other day, I decided to blow that aloof feeling right out of the water by adding Essie Stroke of Brilliance, a glitter topper with two sizes of sky blue hex glitters in a clear suspension base. I up-ended the bottle for a few minutes and then ploshed on a layer of Stroke of Brilliance. In retrospect, I probably would have attained a slightly classier look if I hadn't up-ended the bottle, since I got quite a lot of glitters on each nail. But what the heck!

Essie Stroke of Brilliance, bottle shot

Essie Stroke of Brilliance, macro shot in the bottle

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Essie Stroke of Brilliance over Sation Redwood Creme

Wow this combo just makes my eyes happy! It's super sparkly in the sun too. I really love Essie's Luxeffects Collection of toppers. This was my first time trying Stroke of Brilliance and now I can't wait to use it again. Applies beautifully with superb glitter payoff as you can see.On a side note, I am waiting for the day when I can apply a glitter polish without getting individual glitters all over my fingers. I seem to be especially adept at lodging them beneath my cuticles. What's up with that?So after fluttering my fingers around and gazing at that manicure for a while I thought I'd try something else, something quite different. So I started over with Sation Redwood Creme and this time I used CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise as a topper.Tequila Sunrise is a very bright medium pink jelly polish full of microfine color shifting shimmer that glows gold, pink and green depending on the angle of light. I love this stuff, it is so cool! It totally ups the ante on the fruity finger nail look of Redwood Creme. With a coat of Tequila Sunrise, those fruits go sci fi tropical and edenesque. Take a look....

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise, bottle shot

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

Yum, just yum!

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise over Sation Redwood Creme

I mean, doesn't that totally look like what you'd think the fruit of the tree of knowledge in Eden would have looked like? Dangerous fruit! Mess with that and it'll get you bounced right out of paradise.

You may notice that all my photos of this combo are close-ups in bright indirect light. From farther away, the strong shimmer in Tequila Sunrise messes with the original color of Redwood Creme and produces a muted red-orange look. Kind of like radioactive brick. It's still cool but doesn't photograph as well as it does in close. Speaking of cool, I saw a photo of you at one of your swim meets on Facebook, Eleanor. You looked victorious! Are you still swimming breast stroke in your races? I'm so glad you're having fun being on the swim team!love,Aunt Liz